How to classify head voice and mixed voice?

[yongsua1995]

Hi, may I know was she singing with head voice or mixed voice or even chest voice? Start from 2:40 to 4:00. Those high notes sounded so solid although she doesn't possess very chesty and gigantic voice. What do you think about her technique? How can I classify between head and mixed? TQ

Just skip to 2:40 and listen her singing. She has best vocal technique as a today's pop singer in my opinion. In Asia, she is known as Iron Lung Queen cause she is not easily tired of singing like this.

[VideoHere]

she's singing with a well balanced voice. the room acoustics seem to be favorable as well. investigate her performances of the same song and you hear differences.

but still a very accurate voice.

[yongsua1995]

Thanks for replying... This was her another performance of the same song. The original key of this song is F#5 but in the video of previous post, she was trying to reach her utmost boundary.

Start from 3:10, you can listen how were her high notes.

This was her another performance of another song. I just praise for her vocal technique. Just listen from the 0:00 to 0:15 and from 3:10 to 3:20

[Owen Korzec]

She's using mixed voice. Often a head-dominant mix which is a much rare in contemporary music, that's why she sounds so unique and why she is not really struggling at all and why it's hard to tell if she's in full voice or not.

Very nice singer, definitely doing some cool things with her voice.

If you admire this sound and would like to imitate it, I would recommend spending loads and loads of time on head voice development. Just learning how to belt or power up a chesty mix will not get you the finesse she is using, growing the head voice is a much bigger part of it. She sounds like she's spent several years training her head-dominant mix, starting from head voice and build and building it till it sounds the way it does now - almost identical to a belt.

One last note - the founder of this forum, Robert Lunte, is excellent at teaching this kind of coordination - building a head voice so strong it sounds like chest.

[yongsua1995]

Thanks for your reply. I just feel that this kind of belt is a nice one if it is compared with chest voice belt that sounds too powerful and shouty. However, I just want to know whether she was using chest , mixed or head because it was so hard to classify when she could hit those high notes by maintaining the tonal quality and it sounded like "one register" singing.

[Owen Korzec]

Thanks for your reply. I just feel that this kind of belt is a nice one if it is compared with chest voice belt that sounds too powerful and shouty. However, I just want to know whether she was using chest , mixed or head because it was so hard to classify when she could hit those high notes by maintaining the tonal quality and it sounded like "one register" singing.

the reason I think it's headier is because it actually doesn't sound like one register singing to me. In the second clip she does a very chesty belt around the G#4 A#4 and B4 where the chord progression starts each time but then when the phrase goes a lot higher she goes to the lighter belt which sounds noticeably different and especially later on she continues to carry that down to the B4's in the same phrase.

nonetheless it still sounds GREAT

[Felipe Carvalho]

To know precisely it would be necessary to work directly with the person.

And because of the nature of this kind of registration, its irrelevant since its not meant to have a specific sound you can identify or use to do interpretations.

These registers do not actually exist, they are literally built into the voice. Its a very efficient organization when done correctly, but, its stil abstract in most part.

[VideoHere]

totally agree...it's not about chest or head, it's about balanced registration.

also, the singer appears very confident and bold...remember the mental side can make greats things happen to your voice.

[Ben Woodward]

Can I introduce some different terminology to you?

In CVT terms, in the first clip she is mainly singing in Edge.

To summarise, Edge is loud, has distinct twang and only works with the vowels I, Eh, A and Oe. It has a very light sound colour due to the twang, but when you get it right you can go very high without difficulty. To use it we create a small space in the vocal tract regardless of how open the mouth is.

Everyone has this mode and its rules are known by researching on healthy singers.

In the first video at the end, she's also singing in Neutral and Flageolet.

Neutral is a bit more like Head Voice and Flageolet is a bit like Falsetto. We can do these all through our range.

The chest voice you refer to thats a bit more shouty is known as Overdrive.

She's using a bit of Overdrive in the Second video at 3.25 and a lot of neutral after that and a bit of flageolet at 4.05. She's singing quieter in the second video than in the first video.

You don't have to use these terms yourself, but I think its important to understand that there are other ways to define a sound that may work brilliantly for some singers who want to know those extra details!

The reason I'm bringing it up on this thread is that, I totally agree, there is some general confusion over what is mix, what is head, etc.

Some singers describe it as one thing, others describe it as another thing and we get all sorts of variations. Some refer to head/chest voice, others refer to head/chest register and mean different things by it! Also, have you wondered what it is that we are actually 'mixing' with our mix voice?

As Felipe said:

These registers do not actually exist, they are literally built into the voice. Its a very efficient organization when done correctly, but, its stil abstract in most part.

I think that this technique is a step towards removing that abstractivity.

the singer appears very confident and bold...remember the mental side can make greats things happen to your voice.

Totally agree! You can't do technique on its own, its got to be used with interpretation, attitude, charisma, whatever you want to call it! :)

[VideoHere]

sometimes it's just balls to walls...lol!!! personally, i think vocal injury can come just as much from undersinging......

[yongsua1995]

Thanks for the replies. However, I am not clear about the CVT terms. I have just found out that there are neutral, curbing, overdrive, and edge(belt?); They seem to be some sorts of vocal modes.

My Favorite singer is Lara Fabian and I am crazy with those belts she used to sing in her prime. There are many belters like Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin...etc but I hardly find those singers belt like Lara, her belt sounds cool especially the resonance. Can you identify what kind of vocal mode was she using? Did she use the four vocal modes above? And do vocal modes associate with resonance? How?

Can you identify those modes in her belting like 1:38-1:40, 2:43-2:46, 2:47-2:48, 3:06-3:09 (Head voice, was it an edge?) and 3:54-4:00

[VideoHere]

she's one of my favorities too, and she still sounds great.

i get an emotional reaction to this segment whenever i play it.

3:07 to 3:29 but the part from 3:19 to 3:29 moves me close to tearing.

sick, sick, vocals!!!

[Ben Woodward]

I don't think many people are familiar with the CVT terms, which is why I wanted to bring it up… Not to convert anyone or anything I think there are plenty of benefits to using other techniques but when it comes to defining exactly what we are talking about, this technique wins in my opinion.

Its problem is exactly what you said, you're not familiar with the terms, so it only really works fast if you've had some training in CVT itself. But I think its a real step towards establishing terminology we can all agree on!

If you don't like the names of the modes, we can always just use what works in the science and throw away the rest!

Just a note: Edge used to be called Belt in the older books, but the model has changed considerably since then. The word belt was changed to edge so as not to confuse with Belting, which we consider to be more of a general term thats used universally in singing and can technically be done in any of these 4 modes.

I can hear the following modes in those sections you've given me. Theres probably some curbing in the song somewhere too but I think she's generally louder than the limits for curbing.

At 1.38 she's doing the following:

Close your: Neutral,

Eyes: Edge, vowel A

Oh your eyes will only: Some Overdrive, but mainly Edge in medium volume

Tell: Overdrive

The truth: Neutral

At 2.43 she's doing this:

Of: Overdrive

The: Edge, vowel A

Night: Medium Edge, vowel A, with a small I at the very end.

At 2.47 to 2.48 she's doing this:

Close your: Neutral

Eyes: Edge

3.06:

Free: Neutral, vowel ee

3.54:

Of the: Overdrive

Night: Edge, vowel A

We all have all the modes and if the voice is healthy, all voices obey the same basic rules. Of course the differences are due to our own individual vocal fingerprint, but we can analyse, identify and learn how to do it our way if we know whats going on. (As close as we can get without sticking a camera down there!).

Yes, the modes associate with resonance, but could you explain exactly what you mean by resonance. Are you talking about vibrations we feel, sound frequency we hear, physiology and resonator space or something else?